Implementation and analysis of a fast backprojection algorithm

The convolution backprojection algorithm is an accurate synthetic aperture radar imaging technique, but it has seen limited use in the radar community due to its high computational costs. Therefore, significant research has been conducted for a fast backprojection algorithm, which surrenders some image quality for increased computational efficiency. This paper describes an implementation of both a standard convolution backprojection algorithm and a fast backprojection algorithm optimized for use on a Linux cluster and a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) based processing system. The performance of the different implementations is compared using synthetic ideal point targets and the SPIE XPatch Backhoe dataset.